In Flames
Tough Guys At Work

15.06.2008

With whatever they do, In Flames seem to polarize their audience harder than anybody else in extreme metal nowadays. This holds true for the gigs they did in Moscow and St. Petersburg early this year, after which half of the audience were on cloud nine and the other half complaining of poor sound and the band’s poor physical condition, as well as for the new album “A Sense Of Purpose”, which some view as one of the Swedes’ finest works and other deem pointless and not catchy enough. As in most of such cases, we ask the band themselves to comment on all the latest developments and probably clear out some of the rumors and misunderstandings. Thus, we brought up guitarist Bjorn Gelotte for the answers, and even though four years ago he proved impossible to catch for an interview, this time it all worked out fine…

Let’s begin with your recollections from your visit to Russia in January this year. How did it happen that your bass player Peter Iwers performed the entire Moscow show sitting on a chair? What are your impressions from such a performance?

First of all, we loved it! It was the first time for us in Russia, but we had heard a lot of great stories, especially from Peter, who had gone there with Pain a year ago or something. They had a great experience, and we were expecting it to be really nice, probably really cold, but really nice. And it was indeed superb, the shows were amazing. We played two sold out shows, one in St. Petersburg and the other one in Moscow, we had an amazing audience, and everybody was taking care of us, so it was really cool. We felt really at home even though we were playing there for the first time.

The reason why Peter was playing sitting down is that we went to the Kremlin, where we were supposed to do a photo shoot, and it was really slippery on the cobblestones, it was icy and snowy. He took a trip, he fell, and it was really funny, he was laughing on his way down. But when he landed, he landed really bad, so he dislocated his knee. He had to go to the doctor to drain a lot of blood, and he was on painkillers and vodka pretty much for the rest of the day. (laughs) But he did it, he’s a tough guy, and he never complains. I’m really happy that he did it, because it was an amazing show.

There were rumors that your singer Anders Friden was not quite OK either during that tour. Some sources said he was suffering from a bad cold, and that’s why you shortened the setlist…

We didn’t really shorten the setlist that much, it was a matter of timing, but that’s true we almost didn’t make it to Russia, because Anders had a bad flu just a couple of days before. Once again, he’s a really tough guy just as much as Peter. If it had been anybody else in the band, we perhaps could have cancelled it, but Anders is tough, and Peter is tough, so we managed to do it anyway.

Speaking about tours in general – I am following what happens with other big names of the Swedish scene, for instance, Soilwork, and over the past three or four years they lost two members because they were too tired of touring and living on the road and couldn’t take it anymore. But In Flames have been carrying on with the same line-up for many years. How do you manage to cope with all the hardships of being on the road so much?

We’ve had the same line-up for 10 years now, and this line-up came together because of the love of touring, this is what we wanna do. That’s why we lost a couple of members in the past, 10 years ago we lost our guitar player and bass player because they didn’t like to tour. I think it’s a natural thing for bands, they need to evolve and adapt to the life on the road, because you gotta be really focused, you gotta be aware of the amount of work you need to put down to tour. It took a while for us to find such people, but I think that after we found the right guys, it’s been very easy to get along. Everybody’s out there for the same reason - we love playing live, we love meeting new people, we love experiencing different cultures and countries, that’s just how it is.

Even though Soilwork has been around for quite some time, they haven’t actually toured half as much as we have. Most of the times when we’re out on the road we continue touring for up to half a year or sometimes eight months a year. And that’s a lot, that’s when you really understand the amount of work you need to put in. I can understand that some people get surprised and think that it’s maybe not for them.

The band now has its own studio, where you recorded much of the latest album. Why did you decide to build a studio of your own? Were you dissatisfied with working in Dug-Out for some reason?

We did one album totally in Dug-Out, and we did drums and vocals for “Soundtrack To Your Escape” (2004) and “Come Clarity” (2006) there. It was fine, but it’s very far away from where we live. It’s up north of Stockholm, and we all live in Gothenburg, which means that you’re away from home for all the studio time. At the same time, we didn’t build our studio from scratch, we just took over the old Fredman Studio and remade it. We put in some new equipment and renovated the kitchen and toilets, all the important areas for musicians. (laughs) We did it really nice and brought in some good people to work with, so now it’s really comfortable. It’s a great opportunity for us to actually acquire a studio.

The old Fredman Studio has been moving around for quite a bit. The first studio that Fredrik Nordstrom had was a really small one, and In Flames only did a demo there many years ago, in 1992 or 1993. Then it was located in a musical building that had a lot of rehearsal spaces, and that’s where we were doing all the records until “Colony” (1999). Then Fredrik moved to this place, and we recorded “Clayman” (2000) there. He went on to do some other albums, and we did a bunch of studio work elsewhere, but after a while he decided to move, and we chose to keep it. Anders was a part-owner of it, so it was easy for us to come in and take over it. Now all of us as the band have it together. It’s a great place to have, it’s like a headquarters, so to say, and it’s a nice place to hang out.

Many musicians say that when you work in a studio of your own and don’t have any deadlines, there’s a danger of staying in the studio forever and losing focus on what you do. How much time did it take you to record “A Sense Of Purpose”?

Including pre-production, which was also done in our studio, I think it took about two months to record it, which is the longest time ever for us. We did have much time on our hands, so it was easy for us and very relaxed. But we always come to a point when we try to set some deadlines for when we want the album to be released so it can coincide with touring or whatever comes up. It’s always smart to do it that way, because when you have a deadline you have to match it and you have to be done by a certain time. Otherwise, as you said, there might be problems.

The problem is that you sometimes lose some of the spontaneity, when you hit the spur of the moment, you record something and you keep it, because it might not be perfect, but it’s special. That’s very much part of how we work. The feeling is more important than perfection, especially if you’re… not in a hurry, but under some pressure.

What are your plans regarding this studio? Is it going to be the place for In Flames alone, or are you turning into producers and planning to work with other bands?

It’s for anybody to use. It’s a great recording studio, it’s not a rehearsal room or anything like that. It’s a big studio with several different rooms for recording, and it’s just a great place to record, so of course, it would be stupid to have it just for our own use. We’re not gonna be there all the time, since we are touring. We have a great guy with whom we recorded a great deal on this album, Roberto Laghi, he’s working as an in-house technician, and he knows the place even better than we do. It’s great to have someone like that. Of course, anybody interested just look at IF Studios, and you’ll find it.

Apart from the new studio, you used a different cover artist for the new record. Can you tell me what does this very intriguing artwork mean, and why did you choose Alex Pardee to handle it?

Anders had a vision when it came to the actual concept of the cover art. It has to fit with the lyrics, but at the same time it’s not supposed to tell you exactly what it is. “A Sense Of Purpose” is not a concept album, but it sort of follows the same red thread throughout all the lyrics. It’s about people and their inability to see beyond what they’re actually doing, to see the reason why they’re doing certain things. You’re doing stuff just because you’ve always done it in a certain way, and you don’t even react to certain really bad things, because you’re numb. That’s pretty much what it’s all about, and this guy on the cover sort of symbolizes the journey you take through life, trying to stay away from obstacles and problems. In this case it’s symbolized by these holes in the labyrinth’s game. I think it’s pretty smart the way he wanted to do it.

That’s the original concept, and when Anders had it, we contacted this guy Alex Pardee who had done really cool covers, very different from anything else in this genre. When we contacted him, he was a fan already, which made everything easier, and he really wanted to work on this. He had a long discussion with Anders about the lyrics and different concepts and different ideas of how to do it, how much color to use and what kind of colors. Already the first sketches that came over were amazing, that was totally what we wanted to do. It was really easy, Alex is a really cool guy, and he is super-fast. I love the cover, it has a lot of potential in it, you can do a lot of things with it – stage sets, really cool posters and merchandize. It’s a great thing, and it’s not a typical death metal or aggressive cover, which I like as well.

As far as I understand, Anders is the guy who is responsible for the visual side of the band. Was he also the one who came up with the concept of your new video “The Mirror’s Truth”. And can you say a few words about the shooting process?

The actual concept came from the production company, they got to hear the song and this is how they sort of interpreted it. They had discussions with Anders as well, but the basic concept was the company’s idea. I liked it right away, but I was wondering how they are gonna pull this off, though it turned out to be really cool. It’s a fun video, it’s got a pretty satirical outlook on what the industry is today. Pretty much everybody is force-fed whatever some producer wants you to see, it’s a consumer society at the moment, and that’s what we wanted the people to be aware of.

The shooting took place in Northern Sweden, there was very much snow, it was really cold. You guys are not strangers to that, I guess. (laughs) We were in this old factory, a really cool factory house, it was missing parts of the ceiling, so it was snowing inside while we took the shots. It looked really cool.

I remember that “Come Clarity” appeared in illegal file-sharing networks several months before its release. The new album only appeared on the Internet a week ago or something, and the release date is already April 1. How did you succeed in preserving it from illegal distribution? And do you think mp3 sharing had any positive or negative effect on the sales of “Come Clarity”?

It’s really hard for me to tell if there’s a difference. Our albums have always leaked before their time. On the one hand, it’s a great thing, because it shows there’s a great interest in what we’re doing, and it could help spreading our music. If somebody can’t wait for the release, they will hopefully be happily surprised when they hear the album and will want to buy it anyway. At least, they will get into some of the songs and come to our shows. For us, I don’t think it’s a really bad fact, we’re not one of those bands who rely on a single to sell good, otherwise their record label would drop them. We do what we want to do anyway, and that fact is really cool. The downside is that it’s extremely frustrating sometimes. You have something lined up, you want everybody to see the surprise revealed at the same time, but when it’s out already, there’s no surprise. Some people can’t keep their fingers off (laughs), but that’s how it is.

After listening to the album I got an impression that In Flames are now a more mature band. The record is not as aggressive as “Come Clarity”, there are more things going on in the background that a listener probably won’t notice after the first spin. From the band’s perspective, how have In Flames changed since the previous record?

This is a really hard question to answer. We’ve grown two years, we’ve toured, we’ve done 300+ shows since then. And a lot of stuff happens on the road, especially the experiences you go through - all the festivals you play, all the different bands you play with. Also the writing process has been different, since our lives are different now as compared to how they were two years ago, especially with the new studio. There’s a whole bunсh of small things for us, but perhaps they’re bigger for the people outside this little circle.

The only thing we knew before recording is that we wanted the album to sound really organic, we wanted to sound like a band playing, not something produced with triggered kick-drums. We wanted to have a proper drum-kit sound. We took the sound up from there – when the drums were recorded, we started working on the guitar and bass sound that fit the drums instead of having the fattest possible guitar sound. We wanted to make everything part of the soundscape. That’s the only thing we ever planned, we didn’t have any reference materials, we didn’t have any records that we wanted to sound like, we just started working. And if you ask Roberto, the guy who recorded the drums, he was pretty frustrated at times, because we didn’t have any reference, we just wanted to sound fat and real. And that’s what we did!

The way that musicians hear their music is often different from the way fans hear it. Very often other people don’t get what you want to say, or read into songs and lyrics too deep and find the meanings that you never intended to be there. How do you feel about being misunderstood? Does it bother you in any way when some fans say, “I used to like them, but with the new record they lost their way”?

The funny thing is that there are so many people out there who think they know us better than we know ourselves. It can’t be true, of course, there’s nobody else who knows us better. There’s nobody who decides how we’re gonna sound apart from us five. It’s always our decision how to evolve, how to move to the next level, we never let the record company, management, magazines or even fans have anything to say about what we do. That’s really one of the strengths of In Flames – we do what we like, we do the record that we think is missing out there. It makes our lives way easier, because we don’t need to listen to trends or the popular opinion at the moment, we can just do what we like. If people like it, that’s a great bonus, but it’s not the reason why we do it. Imagine yourself – you do an album just because somebody else wanted you to do it like that, and then you have to tour with that stuff. If you’re not satisfied with it yourself, but this is what the popular demand is, then you’re gonna be stuck on this for the next two years of touring. You will have to play the songs a thousand times and live with an album that you’re not really satisfied with. I wouldn’t do it.

I saw the banner on your website that advertises the limited edition of “A Sense Of Purpose” that comes with a bonus DVD containing 165 minutes of studio footage. What kind of footage is that? I really wonder how studio footage can last that long and still be interesting...

We had a film team there, and we also taped a lot ourselves while we were recording just to document it, to remember this. It is the first time we do an album in our studio, it is the first time we do an album this way, we haven’t done an album all together for several years now, and this was a great experience. Everybody was there, and we worked on everything from start to finish, all of us together. Now it’s time when spreading music and footage is so easy, you just have to go on MySpace or any other outlet on the Internet, and you will reach thousands of people instantly. It’s too good an opportunity to miss it, we really wanted to document some parts of this. We also put out some weekly “webisodes” for our MySpace page just to show people that we’re actually working in the studio, that we’re having fun, and that the album is shaping up and taking form. A lot of the stuff was obviously added, because it was just a matter of couple of minutes a week, but now we have most of this material ready. A lot of stuff there is perhaps interesting only for nerds like us – studio equipment and things like that, but there’s also a lot of fun stuff, some footage of us hanging out with other people and whatnot. It’s bonus material, it’s not supposed to be the highlight of the CD.

And more about your website – you are one of the few bands that don’t have an official web forum. Instead, you have a newly revamped fan club “The Colony” with a big Internet presence. Can you say a few more words about it? What are the advantages of being a member of this club?

There’s a whole bunch of different ways of communicating with the band that you like, and this is perhaps one of the best, because you get instant access to whatever we do. We decided that having a forum on our official webpage led to a lot of bullshit thing and a lot of people posting stuff just to later get personal shit from other people. A forum is not for that, a forum is for discussion and for sharing experiences, it’s got to have a positive vibe, I think this is extremely important. If some people don’t like it, they can just go somewhere else. We took care of it by having a fanclub, the people who really want to discuss what we are doing and really have an opportunity to get in certain contact with us. They have opportunities to win great prizes and to interact with us as much as we can on that forum. We meet a lot of these people when we’re out playing, it’s a great thing for them to be connected with the band and for us to be connected with whoever’s coming to buy the CDs and see the shows.

For the new album you stayed with Nuclear Blast in most of the countries, but in the U.S. you have a separate deal with Koch Records. Why did you decide to get a new record label in the U.S.? And in what way is Koch better than Nuclear Blast in America?

The problem with Nuclear Blast in the U.S. has been that they are not strong enough on the American market, they were always a sublabel to Century Media, working with poor distribution and never getting the opportunities they needed, especially for a band like us that tours really hard in the U.S. On most of these tours we couldn’t find our CDs anywhere close to the venues that we were playing, and that’s really frustrating. That’s one of the most important things and one of the reasons why we’re out there - we want to make sure people hear our music and pick up a CD. If you can’t do it, then what’s the point?

So we started looking for other labels, and we found Ferret, or rather Ferret found us. They were really keen on working with us, and it worked out really good, they took care of the tours, and we started planning a lot of things that actually turned out to be really cool. We only signed for one album with them, and when it came for this album to find its way to a label somewhere, everybody was welcome, and all of a sudden there was a great interest. This is great, of course, but this also means that these different labels have to compete, they should offer their best ideas to get the band. We need all the support we can get, especially because we don’t live in the U.S., and we travel a long way to get there, trying to be in people’s faces and on their radar. Koch Records presented us the greatest ideas that we can have, so we’ll see how it works out, but I’m very positive about it.
 
You are probably one of the most successful European metal bands in America nowadays. Did your popularity in the States come as a surprise for you, or was it a result of some marketing strategy, especially focused on this particular country?

The first time we were over there, it was sort of a surprise. We didn’t even know that there was such a need for this kind of music. In America, there was basically no melodic death metal or melodic aggressive metal as we were playing around, it all came from Europe, especially Sweden. All the American death metal and thrash metal was very different, it didn’t have that many melodies, and people were just starving for them. So the first time over there it was a surprise. But then again, we only did a 20-minute set at Milwaukee the first time.

The next tour we did was kind of wise. We didn’t know it at the time, but it turned out wise, because we went with an extremely cool hardcore band called Earth Crisis. That opened so many different options for us, because we got accepted by the hardcore audience, and the hardcore audience in the U.S. is extremely big. Once you’re in there, they’re really cool, they support you to death. We didn’t even know what was going on, but after the tour we could see how much it had helped us out.

After that it was just touring, touring, touring, that’s the only thing that makes a difference over there, especially when you have smaller labels like we had in the past. It’s been a lot of work, an extreme amount of work. For the previous album, we did four U.S. tours in one year, and that’s a lot for a Swedish band that has the whole world as market.

You are going to tour America next month with Megadeth and Children Of Bodom. What are your expectations from this tour?

I expect it to be extreme fun. We know the Children Of Bodom guys really well, we’ve toured so many times with them, and we are good friends. I’ve heard about High On Fire and Job For A Cowboy, I’m really looking forward to playing with them, it’s gonna be a lot of guitar playing on this tour, I can bet! (laughs) And Megadeth, of course, have done some extremely influential metal albums, especially some of the earlier ones, and they have a great new guitar player, Chris Broderick, who is a great friend of ours as well.

I’ve noticed that when musicians have been on stage for many years, they tend to lose interest in the music that other people are making and focus on their own stuff, and when they have free time, they prefer to watch a movie or play a video game, but not to turn on a CD. Is that the case with you, or do you still follow what is going on in the musical world?

I definitely follow what’s going on near me, in my immediate musical vicinity. But it’s really hard to keep track on the grass roots level, because there are not many outlets anymore, especially here in Sweden. There are not many youth centers or smaller clubs where young bands can play, there’s just no outlet for that. Today with the Internet, it’s easier for bands to get some sort of promotion, and when you have MySpace, it’s impossible to keep track on where bands are from and what they’re playing. Plus, as you said, if you’re on the road, you play guitar all day and then you do the show, you just wanna watch a movie! You don’t wanna put on a CD, especially when it’s something you have to think over and analyze. You’d rather hear something that you’ve heard before or read a book.

OK, what has been the latest album that really impressed you?

(pause) A lot of records... I really like a band called Muse, their latest one, it’s not new, but it’s really good. Opeth is amazing, I never cared that much for them in the past, because I thought they were too technical and progressive, a little bit way too much for me, but the last two records I find extremely good. I love the new Danko Jones album, but it’s not really metal. There’s probably more, but nothing comes to my mind at the moment.

We’ve talked a lot about Russia and America, but what is the status of In Flames in Sweden? Do people recognize you in the streets in your home town?

I hope not. (laughs) It probably depends on where you are. If I’m in a rock club, people will probably recognize me, but it will be weird if they didn’t. Then again, I can walk around my town with my kids and do some Christmas shopping without people noticing, and that’s awesome. That’s the way I need to keep it. We’ve always had normal lives on the side of the band, we try to keep our feet on the ground, and when you’re doing that, you’re not exposed to all the media attention. We try to stay away from publicity like that and let the music do all the promotion. You’re not gonna be one of those media hookers that way, and it suits me pretty fine.

In Flames on the Internet: http://www.inflames.com

Special thanks to Alexei “KIDd” Kuzovlev (Irond Records) for arranging this interview.

Roman “Maniac” Patrashov
March 25, 2008
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